Rachel Bloom

Rachel Bloom
Bloom at the 2016 College Television Awards
Born	Rachel Leah Bloom (1987-04-03) April 3, 1987 (age 37) Los Angeles County, California, U.S.
Alma mater	New York University (BFA)
Occupations	Actress comedian singer writer producer
Years active	2009–present
Spouse	Dan Gregor ​ (m. 2015)​
Children	1
Comedy career
Medium	Television film theatre music
Genres	Improvisational comedy sketch comedy black comedy blue comedy musical comedy surreal humor satire cringe comedy
Website	racheldoesstuff.com

Rachel Leah Bloom (born April 3, 1987) is an American actress, comedian, singer, writer, and producer. She is best known for co-creating and starring as Rebecca Bunch in The CW musical comedy-drama series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (2015–2019).^[1] The role has won her numerous accolades, including a Golden Globe Award, a TCA Award, a Critics' Choice Television Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award.

Bloom first became known for her YouTube comedy music videos, including the Hugo Award-nominated video "Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury". She has also appeared in films, including Most Likely to Murder (2018), The Angry Birds Movie 2 (2019), Trolls World Tour (2020), Bar Fight! (2022), and The School for Good and Evil (2022).

Bloom was born on April 3, 1987,^[2] in Los Angeles County, California,^[3] and grew up in Manhattan Beach.^[4] She is the only child of Shelli (née Rosenberg), a musician, and Alan Bloom, a healthcare lawyer.^[5] She is Jewish.^[6]

She attended Manhattan Beach public schools including Mira Costa High School, where she was involved in the school's drama program.^[7] Bloom has said she used performance as a way to try to fit in.^[8] In 2009, Bloom graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts with a BFA in Drama. While at NYU, she was a head writer and director with the school's "premier sketch comedy group", Hammerkatz.^[9] During college, Bloom first performed at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York with the group, and later on her own at its venue in Los Angeles.^[4] She was once roommates with comedian Ilana Glazer after college in Brooklyn.^[10]

Bloom recorded a video for her original song "Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury" in April 2010 and it was released in advance of the writer's 90th birthday in August that year. The song was inspired by Bloom's re-reading of her favorite Bradbury book, The Martian Chronicles.^[11][12] Done as a parody of teen pop but in tribute to Bradbury, the viral video on her "RachelDoesStuff" Youtube channel had more than 600,000 views in its first week of release and Bloom gained a following from it and her subsequent videos.^[13] The video went on to win a Hugo Award in 2011. A photo of Bradbury, posted online Aug. 21, 2010, purported to show him watching the video.^[14]

She worked as an intern for head writer Seth Meyers at Saturday Night Live and in 2012, she unsuccessfully auditioned for the show. The audition video she submitted included a bit as Katharine Hepburn doing the voice for Bugs Bunny in Space Jam.^[15][16]

Bloom released her first album of musical comedy, Please Love Me, on May 13, 2013. It featured the viral songs "Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury" and "You Can Touch My Boobies".^[17][13] Her second album, Suck It, Christmas, was a collaboration with Dan Gregor (her husband) and Jack Dolgen. Released on November 19, 2013, the album is a comedic look at Chanukah with songs including "Chanukah Honey".^[18] Bloom provided the voice of Princess Peach in the song "Luigi's Ballad" on Starbomb's self-titled debut album, released in December 2013. Bloom also co-wrote "Super Friend", performed by Melissa Benoist and Grant Gustin and featured on the musical crossover episode of Supergirl and The Flash in 2014. The song was titled "Duet" on the soundtrack released from the episode.

On April 25, 2016, Bloom receive the Visionary Award from the East West Players at their annual gala.^[19] The award seeks to honor "individuals who have raised the visibility of the Asian Pacific American (APA) community through their craft”; her show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend was lauded for its decision to cast an Asian-American male in a trope- and stereotype-subverting lead role.^[20]

Bloom also worked as a television writer on Allen Gregory and Robot Chicken.^[18]

In April 2017, Bloom appeared on "The Sexual Spectrum" episode of Bill Nye Saves the World, performing the song "My Sex Junk", concerning gender diversity. Both her performance and the episode became controversial, garnering mixed responses including backlash from conservative groups and on social media, where Bloom was threatened.^{[21][22][23][24][25]} The episode received an Emmy nomination.^[26]

Bloom co-starred in the film Most Likely to Murder, opposite Adam Pally and Vincent Kartheiser. The film was directed by Dan Gregor, Bloom's husband. It premiered at the SXSW Film Festival in March 2018, and was released on Digital and on Demand in May 2018.^[27]

Bloom and her rescue dog Wiley appeared together in an #AdoptPureLove PSA for the Shelter Pet Project that began airing in 2019.^[28]

On October 10, 2019, she was featured in a 30-minute YouTube documentary called Laughing Matters, created by SoulPancake in collaboration with Funny or Die, wherein a variety of comedians discuss mental health.^[29] The same year, Bloom guest starred in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic as the kirin Autumn Blaze.

On June 10, 2020, Bloom participated in the #ShareTheMicNow Instagram initiative. Fifty-two Black women took over the Instagram feeds of 52 white women with large platforms, including Julia Roberts, Elizabeth Warren, and Diane von Fürstenberg to draw attention to their work to catalyze change. Bloom's Instagram account was taken over by author Christine Michel Carter.^[30]

On November 18, 2020, Bloom was awarded the Lifesaver Award from ELEM/Youth in Distress in Israel, a nonprofit aiding youth in distress in Israel, at its Hats off to Heroes virtual gala.^[31][32]

On May 7, 2015, Bloom filmed a half-hour pilot for Showtime with co-executive producer Aline Brosh McKenna (The Devil Wears Prada), directed by Marc Webb.^[33][34] It was eventually picked up by The CW for the fall 2015–2016 season.^[35] Crazy-Ex Girlfriend became a critically acclaimed hour-long series with more network-friendly content when it transitioned from cable to network TV^[36][37][38] and features musical numbers.^[39] The show premiered on October 12, 2015.^[40]

On January 10, 2016, Bloom won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Television Series, Musical or Comedy.^[41] The following week, Bloom won the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actress in a Comedy Series.^[42] On September 23, 2019, Bloom won the 71st Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics for her work on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

"Holy Shit (You've Got to Vote)" is a 2016 video created by Rachel Bloom to encourage people to vote in the 2016 election. The star-filled cast sang profane lyrics directed at Donald Trump, such as "Donald Trump is human syphilis/we could be the antidote".^[43] The video caught the attention of many news outlets, though some questioned its effectiveness retrospectively.^[44][45]

In 2015, Bloom married her boyfriend of six years, writer, actor, producer and director Dan Gregor.^[46] Her cousin, a rabbi, performed the ceremony.^[46] They have a daughter, born in March 2020.^[47]

Bloom has a history of mental illness, having been diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and OCD, about which she has candidly spoken.^[48][49]

After the Hamas-led attack on Israel in October 2023, Bloom signed an open letter by Creative Community for Peace, calling for the world to "stand with Israel as it defends itself against a terrorist regime in Gaza that seeks Israel's destruction."^[50] In February 2024, Bloom headlined a comedy show fundraising for Israel, including Sheba Medical Center and The Koby Mandell Foundation.^[51]

In November 2020, it was announced that Bloom would be releasing a memoir, titled I Want To Be Where The Normal People Are, published by Grand Central Publishing. The book was released on November 17, 2020. It explores Bloom's own mental health struggles and experiences with bullying, both as a child and as an adult in the entertainment industry, along with her experiences in the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.^[63]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Rachel Bloom.

• Official website
• Rachel Bloom at IMDb